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They really had this girl lugging around multiple swords the size of her entire torso huh. And unlike everyone else who fights in this show she doesn't have any powers whatsoever. Upper body strength absolutely ridiculous. Minmaxed strength build.

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100% agree

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unpopular opinion but it really hurts my heart that Steven universe was reduced to a show about pacifism when a huge part of the central narrative was using pacifism to avoid war. A war that is incredibly important to the mainline story that resulted in many lives lost and many more corrupted to the point of (almost) no return. Not to mention that it’s not even true pacifism; there are fights between the main characters and the antagonists (and even between each other) nearly every episode. The show is not averse to violence, but it draws the line at escalating that violence to war. Idk, I feel like that’s different.

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I saw a post a couple of days ago that said one of the most important things about Steven Universe, thematically, is that everybody in the core cast has done at least one completely morally unjustifiable thing, regardless of how likeable or sympathetic they are otherwise, and that this is important to understanding the show thematically. This is true. 

But it also reminded me of one other thing I really like about Steven Universe, which is that it’s the emotional-toxicity equivalent of all those posts about how cartoons have to come up with unimaginably worse forms of death and violence in the course of avoiding getting censored for depicting plausible forms of death and violence.  All of the ways in which SU characters cross those emotional and interpersonal lines are wrapped up either in their fantastic abilities or their bizarre life circumstances in a way that makes it all esoterically awful and often much more existentially horrifying than any of the real-life dynamics it’s alluding to. You’ve said nasty things to people in the heat of the moment but you’ve never shapeshifted into the guy’s dead wife to twist the knife a little more. No violation of bodily autonomy is ever gonna involve contriving a situation in which the other party will believe that it’s necessary to fuse with you, body and soul in order to do demolition work. The most toxic relationship in the world isn’t gonna involve imprisoning someone at the bottom of the ocean for several months and only emerging to participate in humanoid-sacrifice rituals. Your codependency will never last 8,000 years, be frontloaded with a faked death you’re biomechanically incapable of confessing to, and end with your partner’s suicide-by-childbirth. Your worst roommate situation will never end with one party stealing the apartment and taking it to the moon. Et al. Et al.

I don’t remember where I was going with this, precisely, (and I may have drifted sideways from the original discussion topic of crossed lines per se, but whatever.) I mean part of it’s funny because it exists in a series with tons of mundane, non-metaphorical examinations of interpersonal issues, like everything to do with Lars and Sadie, or Sour Cream and Marty. And there’s an extent to which I’m just describing how cartoons are written. But there’s something special about how Steven Universe does it. Something delightfully fucked up about it all. I think maybe part of it is that it’s a considered and embraced fucked-upedness, none of this is just an ill-considered fridge-logic by-product of something else they were trying to do. Like for every one of these, someone in the writers room probably went, “Man, this has some fucked up implications,” and then everyone would go, “Yeah!” and hi five and put it in specifically because of that. Great Show. Great show

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I saw a post a couple of days ago that said one of the most important things about Steven Universe, thematically, is that everybody in the core cast has done at least one completely morally unjustifiable thing, regardless of how likeable or sympathetic they are otherwise, and that this is important to understanding the show thematically. This is true. 

But it also reminded me of one other thing I really like about Steven Universe, which is that it’s the emotional-toxicity equivalent of all those posts about how cartoons have to come up with unimaginably worse forms of death and violence in the course of avoiding getting censored for depicting plausible forms of death and violence.  All of the ways in which SU characters cross those emotional and interpersonal lines are wrapped up either in their fantastic abilities or their bizarre life circumstances in a way that makes it all esoterically awful and often much more existentially horrifying than any of the real-life dynamics it’s alluding to. You’ve said nasty things to people in the heat of the moment but you’ve never shapeshifted into the guy’s dead wife to twist the knife a little more. No violation of bodily autonomy is ever gonna involve contriving a situation in which the other party will believe that it’s necessary to fuse with you, body and soul in order to do demolition work. The most toxic relationship in the world isn’t gonna involve imprisoning someone at the bottom of the ocean for several months and only emerging to participate in humanoid-sacrifice rituals. Your codependency will never last 8,000 years, be frontloaded with a faked death you’re biomechanically incapable of confessing to, and end with your partner’s suicide-by-childbirth. Your worst roommate situation will never end with one party stealing the apartment and taking it to the moon. Et al. Et al.

I don’t remember where I was going with this, precisely, (and I may have drifted sideways from the original discussion topic of crossed lines per se, but whatever.) I mean part of it’s funny because it exists in a series with tons of mundane, non-metaphorical examinations of interpersonal issues, like everything to do with Lars and Sadie, or Sour Cream and Marty. And there’s an extent to which I’m just describing how cartoons are written. But there’s something special about how Steven Universe does it. Something delightfully fucked up about it all. I think maybe part of it is that it’s a considered and embraced fucked-upedness, none of this is just an ill-considered fridge-logic by-product of something else they were trying to do. Like for every one of these, someone in the writers room probably went, “Man, this has some fucked up implications,” and then everyone would go, “Yeah!” and hi five and put it in specifically because of that. Great Show. Great show

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steven is a really funny character actually. he never went to school. one of his powers is astral projection for no real reason. hes a musical prodigy. he was so traumatized by the end of the show they had to make an entire epilogue series about it. he spent seven years looking like a 3rd grader. he was even bisexual

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Never forget that Steven Universe’s queerness was intrinsically linked in its narrative and themes. It told a story of oppression, mental health, triumph, and loving yourself using characters both metaphorically and literally queer (along with neurodivergent, PoC…there’s a lot of layers to this). Anyone downplaying its LGBT+ rep is talking out of their ass. I’m so tired of this show being the animation community’s punching bag. The discourse around this show hasn’t changed since 2018. Who fucking cares that it isn’t perfect, we’ve heard it all, most agree. But the fact a cartoon for children aimed to be this nuanced, complex, and mature, whilst still being a whimsical cartoon is amazing and exactly what kids need. I know they’ll grow up thankful that they watched it and all the other cartoons following in its footsteps.

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Pearls! ⭐︎

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It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay

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some su art i still like from 2019!

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I find so funny people dunking on SU because the finale was rushed like. Yea it WAS rushed but it was rushed because Rebecca Sugar fought with tooth and claws to have a same-sex wedding and kiss ON SCREEN. The finale was rushed because that's what the network did to her when she fought for queer rep. Of course the diamonds were redeemed too fast. They literally didn't have any more time to set this up because the renewal was dropped after the Rupphire wedding. And even being rushed, it's a finale that MAKES SENSE. It's a finale so well set for this series. Steven Universe has its mistakes, but denying that it was a huge breakthrough on queer rep is just evil. Rebecca Sugar didn't have SU almost cancelled for a lesbian wedding for you guys to keep shitting on SU for being "out of model" "rushed" and "with a bad finale"

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HAPPY 8 YEARS SINCE SU PREMIERED

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y’all ever see a piece of fan content about your favorite character that is so horrifically different from what you personally believe and you just